


Protectors

by Asynca



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Canon Filler, Gen, shameless nightborne apologism, what can I say I think tyrande was a shit about this stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 20:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16272101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asynca/pseuds/Asynca
Summary: Look. This is really just me being shitty about Tyrande's decision not to let the Nightborne join the Alliance and also about how much I like and respect Thalyssra.Thalyssra pays Tyrande a visit just before the Escape from Stormwind scenario.





	Protectors

King Anduin’s servants had come to rouse her in the early hours of the morning, thinking she would be asleep. Tyrande was a night elf: this was when she was most easily awake.  She’d already known something was amiss for a good two or three hours and her sentinels were already on it.

She was debating going and waking the druids, too—not a decision she took lightly these days, sleep no longer came so easily to them—but before she got the opportunity, two members of the Stormwind guard threw open her door, marched past her and slammed the bars on her window shut and then stood by it as sentries. “Apologies, my Lady,” one of them told her through his helmet. “The King’s orders are that you be protected.”

Tyrande’s eyebrows twitched. “Thank you,” she said, as much as she didn’t like to thank people for barging into her room, regardless of where she was, “but two of my sentinels are posted just below my window.”

They didn’t move. “King’s orders, my Lady. There’s been some sort of security breach in the stockade.”

Tyrande’s skin prickled; _Saurfang._ Those _Horde_ _monsters_ were probably making some attempt to rescue him! After he’d nearly murdered her beloved in cold blood and practically handed the torch to Sylvanas to slay her people and burn their home, there was absolutely no chance Tyrande was going to allow him to escape. Not until he’d faced their justice.

Which meant dealing quickly with these guards. She took a breath. “Did King Anduin specify _where_ exactly you needed to position yourselves to protect me?”

They glanced at each other, hesitant. “He ordered us to bar your window and stand guard,” one of them offered.

Ah. She spoke in the most authoritative tone she could muster. “Now that you’ve barred my window, would you mind standing guard outside my door? There’s no use in having two layers of security at my window.”

They looked at each other again. It was clear they felt uncomfortable—while she _was_ leader of the night elves, she wasn’t their King—but in the end, they saluted her and showed themselves out the heavy door to her quarters.

She exhaled, moving to the window. Her sentinels would let her out if she could get through the lock.  

She was holding the lock in one hand, eyes closed, whispering a prayer to Elune that the mechanism to the lock should fall open in her hands, when a somewhat familiar voice spoke softly behind her.

“Arcane magic is much better for that particular spell.”

Her eyes snapped open; that was a _Nightborne_ voice! She spun around, ready to defend herself, but she didn’t need to.

That traitor Thalyssra was clearly not here too attack her; and good, because Tyrande was certain she could best her should they come to blows. There was no place for her to enter anywhere in the room, so she must have teleported in. Around them, the room sparkled; they were in an arcane cone of silence. “Hello, Tyrande.” She looked relaxed.  

Tyrande was _not_. She felt her blood rise. “Come to petition me again in the same breath as you rescue your _new hero_ from the stockades?”

Thalyssra let a moment of silent pass between them. Rather than engaging Tyrande, she simply said, “I’m sorry for your loss. Truly, Teldrassil was a tragedy that should not have happened. We elves have lost far too many already.” It sounded genuine.

Despite how it sounded, Tyrande had to hold herself still so as not to strike out that this _traitor_. “’We’? You joined the very people who cut us all down like vermin and yet you deign to say ‘we’? You deign to speak to me? Your hands are covered in our blood.”

“That was not on my order, Tyrande.”

Technicalities! “Don’t play that card, Thalyssra. It might as well have been your order. You let her slay us: your people. You didn’t make a single move to protect us.”

Thalyssra was still calm. Or perhaps she wasn’t—who knew? 10,000 and no sun or moon had dulled her features and made it hard to read her expression. “Should I have protected you?”

“ _Should you have_? What a question! You should have done a great many things you did not! Of course you should have protected us!”

“Because I know a spell that could have protected all of Darnassus from the onslaught.”

At that, Tyrande took a step back.

Suddenly, she realised where this was going.

Thalyssra let the realisation sink in before she spoke again. “I could have enveloped Darnassus in magic, causing the flames to fall on an arcane shield rather than on your people. I could have kept them safe and alive.” She paused. “Only to later be heavily criticized for the decision to spare them from death.”

Tyrande had to bite her lip. If she spoke too loudly, she wasn’t sure even the cone of silence would stop the guards from hearing. “Suramar and Darnassus are not comparable, Thalyssra. How _dare_ you say it?”

“You’re right, they aren’t comparable,” Thalyssra said. “Because my people lived and a great number of yours did not.”

A millennia of practice _not_ lashing out at people Tyrande wanted very much to kill was the only thing that spared Thalyssra at that moment. How _dare_ Thalyssra—that two-time traitor and coward—how _dare_ she compare ferreting her people away during wars that needed soldiers to the genocide of innocents in Teldrassil? “If you came here to rub my face in the death of so many of my people I suggest you leave before your body is amongst them.”

Thalyssra swallowed, and nodded once. “I did not,” she said. “And actually, I’m sure Lady Sylvanas would not be happy to find out I’ve spoken with you at all, but no matter. I came here because I hoped after the loss of so many at Teldrassil that you would finally understand why we Nightborne made the decision to protect Suramar.”

The fact these _traitors_ still compared themselves with the kal’dorei was unbearable to Tyrande, and she was growing angrier and angrier at the audacity of it. “And what should I do with that knowledge, exactly, welcome you with open arms into the Alliance after you stood by and watched Teldrassil burn?”

“No,” Thalyssra told her. “I thought it would help you see as I do that the most important thing is the prosperous future of our people. _That_ must always be the reason why we make the choices we do, as leaders.”

“You sound like Azshara!” Tyrande practically spat.

Thalyssra watched her for a moment, eyes searching hers. Tyrande didn’t understand how Thalyssra could be so calm. Honestly, all that time spent hidden away in a bubble must have completely eroded whatever empathy this woman had ever had. What could possibly have possessed Thalyssra to think she would ever be welcome in Tyrande’s presence? “Leave Stormwind immediately, before I kill you myself, right now.”

Thalyssra exhaled at length, deflated. After a moment, she appeared to accepted Tyrande was not interested in whatever nonsense she’d come here to peddle. “Very well,” she said, simply, and then stepped back. Her hands began to glow, but before she teleported out, she spent a moment thoughtfully watching Tyrande. “I didn’t know she was going to burn it, Tyrande,” she said quietly. “Believe me, I would have made different decisions if I had.”

She was gone before Tyrande could snap back at her. It didn’t matter anyway; the ‘Nightborne’ or whatever they now called themselves had made their decision to abandon the kal’dorei not once but twice, both times resulting in heavy casualties. Nothing that came out of that woman’s mouth was anything except empty platitudes to make her feel better about her own cowardice.

Shaking with the nerve of her, Tyrande laced her bracers and reached for her bow. She’d help the Alliance track down these Horde jailbreaks, and maybe she’d even get the opportunity to put at arrow through Thalyssra’s chest herself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
